Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!watcgl!bmacinre
From: bmacinre@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Blair MacIntyre)
Subject: 24bit NTSC frame buffer
Message-ID: <1990Sep18.183751.24443@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Sender: daemon@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 18:37:51 GMT
Lines: 35

I was talking to a friend recently, and the following topic came up.

He has an old (say, 1984) frame buffer lying around.  It is a
stand-alone unit which you talk to over a serial line.  It 24bit RGB
with a resolution of 640x480 and standard NTSC output (ananlog RGB and
SYNC outputs).  It has a bitslice processor internally for doing some
local processing.

The thing that struck me is that this sort of frame buffer seems to be
the ideal companion for someone trying to use an Amiga to do single
frame recording style video work.  The speed to access is offset by the
time it takes to generate an image, I would think.  Sure it may take
over a minute to send down a single frame, but how fast can you generate
high quality 24 bit images?  And the stand-alone nature means you get
nice rock-solid images, with no interference from the computer ...

The reason I'm posting is this.  Would anybody be interested in such a
thing?  We're having a pseudo-argument over whether it would be useful
to someone using the Amiga to do low-cost video work.  So, anybody who
does video work with the Amiga, would that be useful?  It seems to me
that the one thing that Amiga lacks in such a scenario is the 24bit
output, which this would give?  Can you see it being useful, how much
would it be worth?  These things cost ~$40000 back in '84, but obviously
aren't worth anything near that now.

I can see the ULowel board being used for something similar, but I can
remember any details of it.  Does it have NTSC output?  How much would
it cost (has it been released?  If not, how much do you think it would
cost?)

Any replies would be appreciated, I would like to win this argument! :-)

--
-- Blair MacIntyre, Professional Leech on Society ( aka CS Graduate Student )
-- bmacintyre@{watcgl, violet}.{waterloo.edu, UWaterloo.ca}